


they're staring with blood in their mouths

by aiineslin



Series: ich tu dir weh [2]
Category: Narcos (TV)
Genre: M/M, One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 10:24:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18618718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aiineslin/pseuds/aiineslin
Summary: jorge is different. navegante likes different.





	they're staring with blood in their mouths

**Author's Note:**

> this has been marinating on my hard drive long enough  
> thank u to my beloved a for beta-ing for me and putting up with my self-indulgent bullshit  
> luv u to guatape and back darling

Contrary to popular belief, Navegante is not an attack dog.  
  
He knows what people say about him when his back is turned; they call him Gacha’s dog, a hellhound to be unleashed on the unluckiest of his foes. He feels a long-simmering indignance at this title; Navegante has a mind, he _chose_ this life, he chose to wet his hands with the blood of men, he chose to yoke himself to Gacha’s wagon.  
  
So he chooses to turn from Gacha’s side when the winds begin to turn, when whisperings of Escobar’s imminent downfall began to manifest itself in people defecting from Gacha’s faction. When he is sent to kill the third defector in three weeks, Navegante makes his decision.  
  
The Cali Cartel is easy enough to contact. They are too large, too well-connected, and at this point of time, there are people in Medellín who have quietly changed loyalties. Navegante’s request is borne on a street child’s whisper to a sicario’s cellphone to the ears of the highest of the highest, the Rodriguez brothers.  
  
The meeting request finds him four days after he sent his message out. He is told to go to a certain location at a certain time, and he complies. He finds a car and two men waiting for him in the kitchen of the restaurant he is directed to.  
  
Of course, they do not do bring him to the Cali Cartel gently. They relieve him of his gun, blind him with a smelly strip of cloth  and put him in the back of a car with balding wheels, beside a big man whose elbows dig painfully into his sides every time the car hits a pothole, which is a taxingly numerous occurrence. He bears this with patience, letting the big man manhandle him into the presence of the Gentlemen of Cali.  
  
It is Miguel who receives him, offering Navegante a drink poured with his own hand. The room is accoutred in the many comforts of the rich and well-connected, and here and there, watchful men waited for a wrong movement from Navegante. They carry their guns as badges of pride and warning, save for one doe-eyed man  who lurks in Miguel’s shadow, his arms folded loosely across his chest. It is an aberration, and Navegante’s gaze linger on him for a moment before slipping over to Miguel.  
  
The transferral of his loyalties is completed easily enough. He begins the negotiations with a simple fact.  
  
“Gacha is insane,” Navegante says. “I do not want to die for a madman.”  
  
At that, Miguel nods understandingly. The men who stand alongside Escobar are unhinged in the most fundamental of ways, given to passions beyond a logical man’s comprehension.  
  
*  
  
Escobar dies, and all is quiet for a few months.  
  
It is a strangely languid period of time. Medellin is all but consumed by Berna and the Castano brothers, and the Cali Cartel has taken over operations in most of the cities that bordered the Cartel’s main base. Peace rolled over the streets, but there are always loose ends that needed to be tied up, and every so often, Navegante is sent out to deal with those loose ends.  
  
(“Jorge makes friends easily,” says Gilberto. He eyes Navegante, sipping at his wine. “But he can make more friends with you around.”)  
  
Jorge is a quiet man. Their drives are long and silent, because Navegante doesn’t like the radio, and surprisingly enough, Jorge agrees with him on that point. Sometimes, when time permits and their bellies overflow with grumbles, they stop at roadside kiosks to have meals before continuing on to their destination.  
  
Navegante discovers that Jorge has a particular weakness for arepas and chunchullo. He does not take coffee, but he drinks fruit juice by the galleon. Jorge, Navegante quickly realises, doesn’t much like sitting down at eateries. He eats while walking back to the car, and he cleans his fingers with the seemingly endless flow of tissue packets he keeps in the glove compartment.

Once, the brothers send them to Medellin to recce out a meeting place. After they complete their duties, Jorge makes a very uncharacteristic request to head out to Guatapé, a small tourist town situated two hours away from Medellin.

 “You don’t have to come.” Jorge already has one leg in the car.

 “Oh no,” Navegante says. He yanked open the car door, plopping himself comfortably into the passenger seat. “I must see what is so interesting in Guatapé. Are you hiding a whore there?”

“ _No_ -” Jorge clicks his tongue in rare exasperation, rolling his eyes to the sky. “Alright. Don’t complain when we get there.”

When they reach Guatapé, the sun has sunk beneath the horizon and the working streetlights have been turned on. Vendors plying their wares line the streets, and when Jorge parks their car near a particularly crowded street, Navegante has an inkling about what is going to happen.

Jorge buys a plate of chunchullo, a glass of lulo juice and a cup of tinto. When he returns to the car, Navegante has swopped around to the driver’s seat, and Jorge grunts a thanks. It does not take long for Navegante to find a quiet corner to park the car, and they sit down on a bench to share the food.

“They make the best chunchullo here,” Jorge says through a steaming mouthful of intestine. He passes the plate over to Navegante, his fingers brushing slightly against Navegante. They sit back on the bench, letting the cold seep into their backs.

“You drove all the way here for beef intestine,” says Navegante mildly. “Two hours.”

“You were the one who wanted to follow me,” grumbles Jorge, but the effect is slightly lost when he works his tongue beneath his lip, trying to remove a bit of meat caught in his teeth. Navegante hands him a toothpick, motioning mutely to the sliver of flesh caught between his teeth. Jorge takes it, scraping at the gristle, frowning slightly.

Navegante finishes the tinto in one gulp, crushing the paper cup beneath a leather-shod foot. “And I did get free supper out of it. I have no complaints."

*

It does not escape the notice of the higher-ups that Navegante is spending more time with Jorge. It is perhaps understandable – Jorge is crippled by his refusal to carry a gun, and it’s always good form to have a killer around when one represents the cartel.

It is Pacho who brings this observance up to Navegante. They are at a restaurant’s patio, night is newly fallen and the live band has just begun setting up their instruments. Pacho is waiting for a potential business partner, and he is smoking away time while waiting.

“So Navegante,” Pacho begins out of the blue, holding his cigarette out for Navegante to light. “I haven’t been seeing you lately. You’ve been spending a lot of time with what’s his name – Salcedo?”

“Jorge Salcedo. Yes. We work well together,” says Navegante, sparking a flame for Pacho. “Jorge isn’t scared of me.”

“Then he’s a stupid man,” says Pacho absently, taking a long draw from his cigarette. He flicks ash to the ground, shooting a questioning glance at Navegante. “Any other reasons?”

“Just that.” Navegante shrugs loosely. “He isn’t scared of me. It’s odd.”

Pacho stares at Navegante for too long a moment, and then sighs, waving the matter away with an irritable hand. “Don’t break him. He’s good at his job and God knows it’s hard to find competent people these days.”

Navegante dips his head in a shallow nod, the corner of his lip twitching into not quite a smile.

*

Because peace and quiet is so rarely found in a career criminal’s life, Navegante seized the chance to take a short break after Escobar’s death. He purchases a ticket to California, because he heard that they have a good party scene there, and the weather is not as monstrously cold as some other American states.

The week passes by grindingly slowly, and Navegante tries to speed the passage of time through a few old tricks. When he needs to sleep, he smokes weed; when he needs to party, he snorts cocaine. He dances with many people at the clubs, some women and some men, and all of them have dark eyes, but none of them are as pretty as Jorge.

He misses Jorge Salcedo every day he is in California.

*

The Cali Cartel is not a very traditional organization, as can be evidenced by Pacho’s high ranking. With that being said, Jorge and his security team refusing to carry guns is an oddity that most, if not all the more traditional sicarios cannot overlook.

And Navegante is as traditional as they come, so one day, he asks Jorge, “Why do you not carry a gun?”

And Jorge, he taps the pager clipped to his belt. “I have this.”  
  
Navegante prods at it. “And?”  
  
“And if I press a few buttons on it, I let people know of potential problems. And they will bring people with guns to come solve the problem.”  
  
“I am one of those problem-solvers,” exclaims Navegante, sounding almost happy.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“So you think I am your dog, because I come when you call,” drawls Navegante. His eyes are gleaming.  
  
“You said that,” retorts Jorge, bristling under Navegante’s gaze. “Don’t put words into my mouth.”  
  
“It’s ok.” He laughs shortly, and closes his eyes, settling further down his car seat. “It is clever. I think that a man is happiest when he finds his niche in life. And I have found mine.”  
  
He reaches out blindly to fiddle with the air-conditioning vents, guiding them to divert cold air towards his face. Jorge speaks up then, “It’s wrong to call a man a dog.”  
  
“Mm?” He cracks open one eye. Jorge is barely visible through his eyelashes, but the man is staring straight ahead, a muscle ticking rhythmically in his cheek.  
  
“God gave us free will,” says Jorge quietly. “No man is bound completely to another.”  
  
The rattle of the elderly air-conditioning unit is the only sound that fills the car for a few long moments.  
  
“Don’t let the brothers hear you say that,” Navegante says at last, all humour gone from his voice. “They like to think they are the gods of their men.” He rasps out an ugly chuckle. “All cartel bosses have that thinking.”  
  
“I didn’t…”  
  
Navegante pats Jorge’s thigh lightly, feeling the other twitch away.  
  
“It’s OK. It’s just you and me in this car. Two can keep a secret if both of our tongues are still. And we are not stupid men, you and me.”  
  
*

He knows that Jorge will leave the cartel; it is just a matter of sooner or later.  
  
A man who refuses to carry a gun because he sees other ways to resolve a problem is not a man who will stay long in this line of business.

Cordova lets slip that Jorge is planning to start a security business when he leaves the cartel, and Navegante toys with the idea of joining Jorge’s firm. It could be fun. Navegante is getting old, and his reflexes are not as they once were before. He amuses himself with the idea of typing out a resume like an ordinary salaryman, of how Jorge's face will look when Navegante hands over his resume in a nice cream envelope.  
  
But when gossip trickles down to Navegante of Miguel dismissing Jorge’s resignation, dimly, Navegante knows that the end is near.

*  
  
Six months, the Gentlemen had announced. Six months till they closed shop.  
  
Navegante takes as many assignments as he could with Jorge. It is almost too easy to do so - for after the announcement, it is as if the fates took the Gentlemen’s decision as a personal challenge to up-end their lives as much as possible before the surrender date.

Within a few short weeks, Gilberto is arrested, the initial surrender deal sours and a horridly familiar tension begins to seep around the edges. David foams at the mouth, testing the limits of his authority. Miguel paces, an old warhorse finally allowed freedom from Gilberto’s reins.  
  
Gilberto is impotent - his desperate counsels gone unheeded and ignored, his milksop of a son next to useless against Miguel and David’s machinations. Chepe and Pacho’s silent compliance in Miguel’s aggression spoke louder than the empty words of reassurance they delivered to Gilberto’s ears.

The end is very close.

Navegante knows this as a man who had escaped the Medellín cartel in its dying days; he knows this as a man who sees the shadow of a familiar madness in David’s actions.

*  
  
So what does Navegante do?  
  
He takes Jorge out to supper.

*

The days are more harried now, morning slides into night with nary a change in the renewed tension that thrums in the air. But even cartel men need to rest, and Navegante drives to Jorge’s house on a Thursday night. He leaves the car idling when he exits it, ringing the doorbell incessantly until Jorge wrenches open the door with far too much strength. A scowl forms on his lips when he sees Navegante, and Navegante observes the way his knuckles whiten on the door’s edge.

“Let’s go for supper,” Navegante calls.

Jorge stares at him. There is a hunted look in his eyes, and Navegante dislikes it. “Did David send you?”  
  
“David asks me to do many things, but he doesn’t ask me to invite people to dinner.” Navegante mulls over this comment for a moment, and then he amends it. “OK, he sometimes does. But this is just for you and me.”  
  
Jorge squints suspiciously at him, but Navegante simply smiles and shoots a thumbs-up his direction. And Jorge sighs, and nods. “Give me a moment.”

Jorge wears a plain, dark jacket when he exits his house; there is no gun tucked into his belt. The eatery that Navegante chooses is a short drive away from Jorge’s house, a small, ramshackle place tucked away at the very end of a street. At this hour of the night, the silence is broken by the crackle of the radio playing old love songs and the low murmur of insomniac men bemoaning the new day ahead.   
  
Jorge orders a cup of perico the moment he sits down. Navegante frowns, and puts in an order for guarapo. They both order arepas loaded with cheese and when the waitress leaves, he turns to Jorge.  “I thought you liked fruit juice.”  
  
Their orders arrive, and Jorge stirs three packets of sugar into his coffee. “I still do.”  
  
“That is far too much sugar,” says Navegante flatly. “Please, drink the juice.”  
  
Jorge laughs tiredly. “I forgot you were a purist.”  
  
“The only good thing about America,” Navegante tells Jorge. “Is that they too, have coffee shops on every corner.” He pushes the glass over, condensation slicking his fingerpads. “Have some. This store is famous for its fruit juices.”  
  
Jorge closes his eyes tightly, and Navegante sees how the pressure of the months had weighed down on him. There are dark circles under his eyes and his shirts hang more loosely off him than before.  
  
“If David wants to kill you and your family in your house,” Navegante says as he takes Jorge’s coffee, inspecting it with a faint air of distaste. “He will come quietly, in the night with many men and many guns. And you will die, Jorge Salcedo, even if you are kept awake by three cups of coffee and had two dozen guns in your house.”  
  
“And you would lead these men?” Jorge’s eyes are open, his brows pinched together in a frown.

“I would say no,” Navegante admits. “I don’t want to kill you, Jorge Salcedo. Not you.” He drums a staccato beat  on the table. “I would take you to Guatapé if I could.”

They sip their drinks, Jorge savouring the fresh, clear sweetness of his sugarcane juice and Navegante wincing slightly at the shock of sugar, milk and caffeine. Jorge pushes the glass aside, the straw bitten to a crumpled pulp

“Another time, maybe.”  
  
They know that there will never be another time.

*

Because Jorge is a fucking rat who sold the cartel out to the Americans.

And Navegante is a proper sicario who carries a gun tucked into his belt.

When David gives him his mission, he accepts it – because that is what you do when a boss gives you a mission– you accept it. It is what you do to rats, you put a gun to their heads and turn their brains into mush.

Death dogs his footsteps, her hot breath licking the back of his neck.

Navegante remembers Jorge in the cold of an air-conditioner vent, long and quiet drives to a distant destination, the sharp, clear sweetness of sugarcane juice. He remembers suppers taken in the dimmed lights of a half-closed eatery, radio static roughening the plaintive guitar riffs of a love song.

The end has arrived, and Navegante thinks that this is an end he can accept if he can meet it with Jorge Salcedo.

 


End file.
